Moving is hard. Moving is hard all on its own, even before you add things like small people and scared dogs and a vet visit. It is especially so when said children and dogs don’t handle change well. (We keep doing it though. I try to tell myself we’re building character. It works for a while.)
And then when you add things like APPOINTMENTS and TAKING PEOPLE PLACES, that’s when the problems really kick in.
And going to the vet with two kids and a sensitive, terrified dog is kinda like taking a mouse to an owl’s house with two hyperactive nearby gerbils nearby to cause general confusion.
It’s a disaster.
And when one of the gerbils also getting teeth and hasn’t slept the night before? Then the hyperactive gerbils are crying WHILE they streak around the room WHILE the mouse whimpers in the corner. (That was too far with the metaphor. I’m stopping it now.)
Sometimes when I’ve taken all the small lives in my house to the vet (and that isn’t often because why would anyone ever do that often) the vet adds to everything by judging me for the fact that I haven’t brushed my dog in a while (I haven’t done that to my children either, so it’s not that I care less about my dog, Ms. Snooty Vet Person).
Or the vet person judges me because my children are sitting on the slightly smelly, extremely hairy tile floor. (Yes, I know and they know that there are chairs. That knowledge is not going to translate into action for two small people who can’t even connect “Brother is angry. I should stop hitting him.”)
All about that smelly floor.
But this time was better. This time the vet laughed at the boys eating their crackers off the table where the dogs have sat and (no doubt) peed. She brought them a paper towel to put the crackers on, realized they wouldn’t use it, and moved right on to her actual job, which was trying to calm a shaking Mina in the smallest corner of the room.
She gently tried to move her head to the side, gently tried again, and then re-positioned herself once she realized the dog was not moving. (Except for the trembling, of course.) She tried to listen to her heart just as the boys started fighting over the single tractor in the truck pile. (I already knew this lesson: Never take ONE of anything to an appointment. Or a nap. Or outside.)
We all tried to calm everyone, and no one calmed down, least of all Eliot, who had lost the Great Truck Battle.
To the victor goes the crackers.
So she took Mina out of the room for the rest of the exam and for her shots while Lincoln shouted, “Mom! I had shots too! Are you ready, Mina? They’ll hurt you!”
There’s not really much of a point to this story except to say a blessing over the vet who made my life just a bit easier that morning when she could have been like the past vets and made me want to cry (more then I already did). And a blessing to all the mothers who sit in vet’s offices with their dogs and their little ones. It’s a rough life we lead.
“PLEASE stay happy with your trucks while the check out lady asks me 1,000 follow-up questions.”
May you have fearless dogs, (but not so fearless that they try to eat the other animals in the office) and quiet little ones (but not so quiet that it means they have pulled out all the vet supplies from underneath the counter). And may you then go home, calm and happy for a peaceful lunch of box noodles. That’s more than we managed, but I believe in you.
Having some noodles with his tears.
I am pretty sure the vet chose to keep our dog an extra night once simply because he thought my kids were stressing the poor thing out!
Haha, that sounds like a vacation my dog would love!